Today's Roast

I am so very hesitant to reveal the locale from which I write lest I only add to the artist’s starved and yet ever so dapper stereotype. Yes, I sadly admit, I am sitting in a Starbucks, writing. How very artsy-studious of me. How very chic. All the good writers seem to be inspired by their piping hot double-grande-mocha-vanilla-reduced-fat-lattes, Ella Fitzgerald lamenting cooly in the background, and the whole-bean-Sumatra-blend-disciples with wide framed glasses and Macbooks tilted casually in front of them. I think they must like the steam screeching through the espresso machines, like The New York Times in wrinkled piles near the door, like the milky circles on tables where the last meetings took place. Local artwork adorns the walls, lamps that look like spaghetti sauce suspended from the ceilings, and exercise groups and mom’s clubs and dental assistants gather in corners and talk over each other, over the espresso racket.

I am seated quite uncomfortably in my angular chair at my angular table, writing in an angular fashion on a place heavily frequented by people like myself ... yet not at all like myself. If I use sentences like, “... and the aroma of pumpkin spice and autumn rain outside the window makes me long for holiday festivities to begin” then, you see, I’ve succumbed to the conventional image of the “writer” found in a Starbucks cafe. But if instead I use sentences like, “... I chose this morning to be economic and bring my own beverage to Starbucks, withstand for a while the nauseating smell of breakfast sandwiches, try desperately to ignore the toddler staring blankly at me as he clearly crashes from a caffeine high, and offer my chair to the first person who appears to be wanting to stay”, then I’ve carefully set myself apart.

The goal here is not to write poorly of Starbucks, or to associate or disassociate myself from any particular writing “group”, or to suggest that I don’t enjoy a good cappuccino from this place every so often. I find the environment disturbingly a muse, my coffee gone cold, $1.59 left on my gift card...